Previews

E3 2009: APB Preview

APB is all about being an individual, but are you too lazy to use the tools the way they want you to?

Spiffy:

Awesome character customization; cool use of LastFM in in-game cars.

Iffy:

Still no hands-on with the game; been in development for a very long time.

What is It?

APB is the next game from Realtime Worlds, developers of Crackdown. It's an MMO that places you in the shoes of either a Criminal or Enforcer (aka evil maniac or good guy), and pits players of opposite factions against one another. Criminal players commit crimes, while Enforcers actively pursue criminals as their crimes are put on an APB.

What's New for E3?

While I didn't get to play the game myself, I did get to see various videos that showed off aspects of the game. The main feature that the team highlighted was the extent to which you can customize your character. Yeah, I know you're thinking, "that's in every game!," but APB takes it to an entirely different level.

Players can not only shape their character's physique, but also customize the way their clothes look, the body modifications they have, and the cars that they drive. The team really wants to drive home individuality, and wants their game to have such unique characters that players can easily identify each other based on physical appearance, rather than a name tag floating above their head. The result is a character creation engine that looks to allow you to make anyone you can think of. A tailor-made President Obama made an appearance during the presentation to help get the point across.

Players don't just create things simply for their own use, though, as their creations can directly interact with other people in the game. One instance of this is the player's ability to sell the clothing they make in the game's auction house. Inspired players can also create "Death Tunes," which will play whenever they kill another player. And while the interface for it looked something like a freeware audio editor, the entire crowd was blown away by examples of the music you can create, including pitch-perfect recreations of 8-bit Nintendo songs and intros from various TV shows.

Lots of previews will tell you all about the sound and music of a game, but I'm going out of my way with APB to detail it because it's actually important. APB uses 3D positional sound, so cars that roll by or players who walk by talking will sound different based on their position to you. Further, cars in APB can use LastFM to play their favorite songs, so you shouldn't have to worry about looping soundtracks driving you insane.

Anthony says: The various features that I've detailed above really impressed me during the APB presentation. The customization features could be really fun to mess around with, especially if you want to create a unique-looking gang and really get into the role you're playing. Hopefully we'll get to see how it actually plays soon, because as good as that presentation was, I'm a little tired of just seeing APB in video form.